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Where romance never ends and happiness abounds

Road to Ruin by Callie Hart & Jonny James

Malicious Destruction of Property.
Two counts of breaking and entering.
Two counts of possession of a controlled dangerous substance.
Four counts of assault.
Three counts of illegal gambling.
Three years served in Orleans Parish Prison.

Tommy ‘Havoc’ Kendrick’s rap sheet reads like a recipe for disaster: one part mayhem to three parts chaos. There’s no arguing the matter; he’s a bad guy, or at least he used to be. For the past five years, Tommy’s been on the straight and narrow, keeping his head down and staying out of trouble. He left the French Quarter behind, along with the New Orleans crime syndicates and underground fights that used to pay his bills. Trading in the high-octane thrill of earning money with his fists to work in an auto mechanic’s was hard, and yet somehow, despite everything, he’s made it work.

Until now.

Tommy hadn’t planned on seeing his brother again. When David Kendrick turns up on his doorstep with a bag full of money and four broken ribs, Tommy finds himself heading back to the place he swore he’d never return. Back to the fights. Back to the drinking, the drugs, and the women.

Back to a life he thought he’d left behind for good.

Nikita Moreau has lived in New Orleans all her life. She learned to drive there, lost her virginity there, bought her first house there, and she’s damned if she isn’t going to die there, too. As a prison psychologist at one of the country’s most dangerous facilities, she runs the risk of dying in the state of Louisiana on a daily basis, and yet she wouldn’t give it up for the world. There’s nothing more satisfying than helping those everyone else has given up on. Nothing more rewarding than fixing something everyone said was broken.

The day she meets Tommy Kendrick, however, she learns a painful lesson: sometimes a person is too broken to be fixed. Sometimes a person is beyond reach and cannot be saved. The tall, dark and handsome, tattoo-covered devil is danger personified. She knows this. She knows he’s bad news. So then why can’t she stop thinking about him? Why can’t she stay away from him?

And, most importantly, why won’t she save herself?”

So you guys know by now that I don’t really do dark romance. Just isn’t my thing on my daily reading basis. That said, Callie Hart is my jam and she sucks me into books that I had no idea I could ever love. This one is no different.

I want to start off with something right now. The beginning of this book is intense times ten. In all honesty, I almost stopped reading because it just actually scared me. But the whole book, while it maintains darkness, isn’t like the first few pages (I wanted to point that out for those who love trying to sample of the book and then might be like, WOAH!).

Nikita’s character is just so…cool, for a lack of a better word. The thing I loved about her is that she is the epitome of peeling back the layers of the onion. Some of the stuff she did, I just never expected. And I loved it. You think you’re starting to get her character sorted out in your head and then she does something out of left field. It makes sense, but its just unexpected.

Tommy’s character is rough. But I loved how we see a kind side to him too. He can be brutal. Savagely brutal. But inside, there is a compassion there. One that comes out several times around, and for, Nikita. One thing I really enjoyed in this story was the actual contrast with his character. It almost felt Dr. Jekyll/Mr.Hyde to me. It was almost jarring but yet it endeared his character to me.

This book does end abruptly. I wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger, because there is some finality to the scene, but this book is the first in a series. I’m really anxious to see the rest of this series. Callie Hart books always suck me in (I read her Blood and Roses series in an entire night). I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves darker romance, or if you already love Callie Hart, then this mash up from her and Jonny James is one you don’t want to miss.